It's almost amusing to see the Labour Party now railing against so many initiatives they have previously so proudly trumpeted in the past. They don't want jobs in energy or farming - also known as the productive side of the economy.
Farming is our biggest export earner, oil and gas is the fourth biggest - they pay our way and if we didn't have them we'd be knackered. The energy industry creates 7700 jobs (a huge number of which are in Taranaki), pay comparatively high salaries, which are taxed, and 42 per cent of the profits of these companies comes back to the Government in royalties and taxes. Labour says all the money goes overseas - a lie.
In government, Labour sold 100 per cent of assets, opened mines, opened casinos and granted exploration consents. They still want to float and sell assets in subsidiaries owned by State Owned Enterprises.
In government they brought trains and carriages from overseas companies but in opposition they are dead against getting the best deal for rail transport in New Zealand. They closed the Eastown Railway Workshops in Wanganui and yet strongly opposed the closure of a similar workshop in Dunedin.
They presided over the biggest growth in house prices, where people made huge paper-based gains in housing prices, and the biggest escalation in private rents, all with no change to the tax regime, just as they had before the 1987 crash. They then spent all the profits on buying elections in 2002 and 2005 and trying and failing to buy the 2008 election. Now, in opposition, Labour wants to implement a capital gains tax, which apparently was a horrible idea when they were in government, but sounds much better when they propose it in opposition.
Labour says the Maori Party should walk away from its confidence and supply agreement with the National-led Government over the water rights issue, but agrees with John Key that nobody owns water. Labour believes we should raise the retirement age to 67, but when it found that its own supporters don't like the idea, said it would not apply to manual workers. However, their definition of manual workers includes labourers and factory workers, but not factory owner-operators, farmers, or people running their own businesses - because these are apparently "fat-cats" who only exploit those who work for them.
When National came into government in 2008, the Treasury forecast was for government debt to be at about 60 per cent of Gross Domestic Product at 2026, but now it is forecast to be zero. This after the worst economic times for 80 years. Labour hates it and wants New Zealand to fail, because they hope this will bring about the best time for Labour in 80 years at a time when their party is struggling to hold together, struggling for relevance, and their lap-dog friends, the NZ Green Party, are eating their lunch and stealing their voters.
The damp squib of a protest outside the National Party annual conference in Auckland at the weekend shows just how confident Labour is that their fortunes are changing. The same old faces at the protest were more friendly than familiar. Not a red flag in sight.